The Return

Well.

Well, well, well.  Here I am again after a profound absence from blogging.  There have been numerous factors which have kept me away from here, a place which was sacred and sentimental, an outlet and a forum.  Foremost among those was a serious security concern which forced me to slam shut the doors of my online life like a the jaws of a great white on a seal pup.  Frankly, I was a little terrified - here was my heart and my soul - literally - the stories of the ups and downs of my life, my motherhood, myself.  I was faced with whether I wanted to continue to open up this fragile corner of my life, to reveal it to anyone, let alone the world.  As a 'personality' with a public profile that waxes and wanes, I face certain challenges to privacy and sanity that others in the blogosphere may not face, and when that side reared its ugly head I ran fast and furious in the other direction and haven't been back since.

Until now.

I found myself feeling invaded, I felt like I had made myself, my family vulnerable by my honesty and I closed up shop.  I missed this special space, I missed the opportunity to pour out the woes and wonder of motherhood and all that it brings and  I felt as if it had been stolen from me.  For the longest time I was unwilling to open the maw again, I felt bruised and scared and I questioned whether I had done something stupid in opening my heart so publicly.  The answer is neither here nor there, it is both right and wrong, a classic example of gray.  But at its base, I realized that I could not let one person steal from me something that I had built and nourished and cherished.  And of all the things which can be taken from you in the business I am in, my words were something which were my own and no one could or should be able to silence them.

I am dipping my toe in this water again, testing it out for salinity, for sanity, for sanctity.  I am trying to trust that what I have to say is more important than one person (or many) who seek to wound me because of some slight, real or imagined.  I decided that this is my story, the story of my children and my life and I will not be silenced by one person or many; I will only be silenced by myself.

And I choose to speak.

'S' is for Sacrifice

When you sign up to have a baby there are a lot of things you think you know and understand.  You think you know how much you will love them, but you cannot truly comprehend.  You think you get that you will lose some sleep, that you won't quite have your usual lifestyle 'but we'll make them fit us!'.

I'm not sure which notion you are first disabused of.

Certainly there is the fatigue.  Like, you think you know what it means to be tired.  You carry your kayak down to the river and with adrenaline coursing through your veins you face a feature that made you want to cry and then you kayak all day in the hot, hot sun and then go to your campsite and party all night and then do again the next day.  Then you drive home and fight through traffic as it bottlenecks into Surrey and you go in and unpack all your gear and wash your precious paddle coat and upload your pictures and then fall into an exhausted heap feeling like you couldn't be more tired.

Ha.  I laugh at you.

Since I have become a parent I have encountered fatigue so severe and debilitating it has made me feel like I understood why really old people get so exhausted that they finally just give up and die.  I have fallen asleep in the hairdressers chair.  Twice.  In one visit.  I have fallen asleep on the floor while folding laundry.  I have gone to appointments a day early and, unfortunately, also a day late.  I have forgotten my passwords to everything at least twice.  I'm considering using '1234' until Zola sleeps through the night.

And that's just the beginning.

You think you understand that you'll be 'out of the loop'.  You think you'll miss a few beats but then jump right back on that horse and earn six-figures again and get that baby weight right off!  You'll bend their little wills to fit your life and lifestyle!  You won't miss a beat!

For about five minutes.

If there is anything that I have had the most trouble coming to terms with as a parent it has been the absorption of my former self into this current self.  Like a parasitic twin that gets absorbed by the stronger twin so that only a few twisted fingers and a hairy ear remain as evidence.  Except I'm the hairy ear twin.

It seems little or nothing of my former life remains.  I don't think I wear a coherent outfit more than once every 8-10 days.  I have even, after 15 years of living in Vancouver finally ended up in the standard mommy outfit:  I got the rubber boots (albeit snazzed up with buckles and clips like the real boots of my former life) and the black hooded rain coat.  If I could find money in my budget (oh, yes, that too you think you'll get) I would even add the de rigeur $125 Lululemon pants to top it off.  [as an aside - I actually remember buying my first yoga mat from Lululemon when they were set up in the back corner of a hair studio in Kits...see where life can take you?]  I still attempt make-up most days, although mascara has become just another thing I have to clean up afterwards so it tends to get the shaft.  I spend several hundred dollars every month on clothes and dance lessons and cultural education.  Unfortunately none of it is for my own edification.

I guess this brings me to budget.

First of all, I actually now have a budget.  That alone I didn't see coming.  But somewhere along the way I stopped being the ingenue and the series lead and I started being the day player and so went my disposable income.  Needless to say, my Robson Street shipping sprees have been severely curtailed.  I don't even look in the same direction as, say, Holt Renfrew.  It's just too painful.  I have ballet shoes to buy and swimming lessons and Aquarium passes and RESPs and Princess-bloody-everything to buy.  There are days when I feel guilty because I bought myself a Starbucks.  I should be saving for their education!  Or life insurance!  Or the babysitter I need so that I don't go completely insane.

It's not even the 'stuff' that I really lament.  I do miss having nice clothes, especially ones that actually fit me but, einh, whatever.  You can become a slave to how you look and motherhood can really help with that!  I miss going out to dinner or drinks whenever we wanted.  When I took the girls to Grouse Mountain recently I smelled that gorgeous crisp air and I remembered how great it felt to go snowboarding on a sunny day then share a pitcher on a patio somewhere after.  I do miss that too.  But still, that's not it.

I think what I miss the most is my mind.

I miss the sheer ability to meditate on my future, on my place in the world, the grand scheme of things.  I miss my creative brain constantly working on something other than which colour glitter glue to stick the googly eyes on with.  I miss writing - really writing.  I miss learning, I miss creating and dreaming.  I miss that part of me, that glowing ember that erupted with new challenges - a new river run, a new mountain climbed, a new stamp on my passport.  The closest I've come in a long time has been a run down a Class II river and a stamp on my 'Little Nest' coffee card.

I spend most of my time buckling the kids into the car and driving to something for them.  Packing lunches in a blur so that we can go to the park before pre-school and then stop at the library for singing time after and going to the Aquarium and the trains and the beach and Science World and...

And every once in a while I wonder when I get to do something for me.  And you know what it makes me think?  It makes me think of my mom; of all moms.  Of your mom and mine - because that is what life is like when you are a mom.  And when you are a kid you never, ever think about it.  Motherhood - parenthood - is just that:  sacrifice.  For the first time in your dementedly selfish existence you put someone other than yourself first, and you do it because you love these weird little inexperienced people so much you would give up all that other stuff just to get one of those leaping hugs or to hear them ask a question like "Do the guys hold hands when they play hockey?"

Ez and I were in the throes of one of those grown-up 'this is really currently sucking' times and we were having a very productive argument via email (yes, it's come to this) and this is what he said:

I don’t want to see you down on yourself as much as you have been.
You are doing the most important job of both of us.  You are with our two beautiful children during the most formative periods in their lives.  Would you rather say that a nanny took care of them while you earned a couple more Gs?  Its only money.  We will find a way.  Love, time with family, time teaching, laughing, guiding, it is priceless.  They will never look to us as they do now.  Truly try to enjoy it while you are amidst the fray.
I’ll be home a bit earlier, I hope.
I love you.
What you do is the most important job that you or I will ever have.  Remember that … please.
I love you.

And through all of it - the exhaustion and the doubt and the self-recrimination about my sheer inability to feel productive about just about anything - it all paled in the face of this paragraph.  Because he really is right.  Yes, it's a huge sacrifice.  But it is a job unlike any other.  It doesn't mean there aren't days when you don't stand outside of the car and take a big breather before you continue back into the fray of parenting, but in the end, at the end of my days I will not remember, will not even be thinking of how much money I made, what titles were on my resume, what heights I achieved.  I will be wishing to see my daughters' beautiful faces again and to tell them how very proud I am and what a privilege it was to have been their mother.

All the other stuff is just that.  Stuff.

Those last five pounds..

Or so.

Despite being an actress I am not one to obsess about the numbers - I never have been.  Perhaps I should have, but that's not really my style.  I eat well, I exercise...well, I did in my former life.

Here's the rub.

I did a silly thing today.  I woke up feeling good, feeling relatively trim and svelte for a nearly 40 lady with a 4-month old baby.  I woke up feeling good and decided it would be a smart idea to weigh myself.  I dusted off the old scale that was unearthed in the recent flood [yes, I said flood].  I stepped on.

And ruined the better part of my morning.

I am still wandering around wondering where the hell I picked up the extra 10 pounds I discovered this morning.  I feel in a funk about it in a way I didn't before I knew that stupid number.  I mean, I know I'm not at my tip top best being a busy mother of two only a few months post-partum.  I've been watching 'Rescue Me' lately and doing a little personal body-bashing - even though I think the women on that show are alarmingly thin - I mean, where did they find those actresses -- at an anorexia support group?  Seriously, if that is what I am supposed to look like I think I should quit now because at my best I was never thin like that.  And never really wanted to be.  It's like a race of sorts to see who can deny themselves the most, who can be the most hungry.  Well, I'm not interested in that race, but I would like to work again.  Hell, I'd like to fit into some of my clothes again.

Yes, I know it hasn't been that long but still.

Damned number.  I hate you.

It was all so much easier before when I kayaked a few times a week, had time for yoga and lifting.  When I slept more than 2 hours at a stretch.  I don't know how it happened - is it that inexorable accumulation that comes on slowly with age?  Can I get back from here?  That's my big question.  I mean, I was feeling pretty good before the number - so shouldn't I feel good despite it?  It's just so damned daunting, the idea of finding the time and energy to actually burn the 35,000 calories that will eat up that number.  Somehow I don't think the Obstacle Course on the Wii is gonna do it.

I guess the moral of this story is:  don't be stupid enough to break out the scale when your baby still doesn't even have teeth.

But you know, at the end of the day, I look at these two gorgeous girls.  Every smile line, every extra little soft curve belongs to me because of them.  And you know, that's okay too.

Well, mostly.

This Grown-Up Sh*t's for the Birds...

Life Insurance.

I'm pretty sure it is the most diabolical institution on the planet.  You can even get insurance on your insurance, that's how totally f*cked up that industry is.  And it's a surefire way to make you feel old and vulnerable and insignificant and angry and depressed and relieved all at the same time. 

There is something singularly depressing about being worth more dead than alive.  It's also a pretty big bummer to spend that kind of money on something you will never personally benefit from and hope never to collect.  Not to mention feeling the incredible bummer at having your life examined by a bunch of pencil pushers who can just turn around and deny you anyhow.

But you know, I'm a grown up now.  I need this kind of sh*t.

Ez and I were both in a tailspin the other day after purchasing our 'insurance product'.  Having someone delve into every little corner of how I live, down to the molecules in my blood felt invasive in a whole new kind of way.  I felt like some kind of angry rodent that had been backed into a little glass box, since it seems that everything that defines me and us as a couple seems verboten under this whole insurance regime.  So we are torn between protecting our family in the case of a tragedy and the tragedy of living life worrying that they might negate our insurance because we went scuba diving or back country skiing or...well, just about anything we deem to be fun.  They don't ask me if I eat organic or how often I eat red meat or McDonalds, but they sure wanted to know if I have a glass of wine after work. 

I seriously feel like I'm living in a sort of Orwellian nightmare sometimes.  Like we know just a little too much about everything nowadays.  They say we are caught on closed circuit TV up to 300 times a day now.  They know what's in our blood and our pee and our sweat.  They can analyze your hair and tell you more about you than your mother knows.  Or possibly even God (I mean really, how much time do they think the guy has since he's helping basketball players and football players win games and all?).  They know whom you've called and texted and emailed.  They know what you buy and where you buy it and how much money is in your left front pocket.

...and I'm not really sure I like it...

I don't have any really deep, murky secrets, but nor am I any babe-in-the-woods.  I live life and I live it consciously and well, with integrity and heart and I try to suck the marrow out and all that.  But it's pretty hard to live the life you've imagined if you aren't supposed to travel outside Canada and the US, or enjoy 4:20 or something.  And that kind of pisses me off.  And it makes me want to sell everything I own and pack up my kids and go backpacking in South America (well, I wanted to do that anyway).  I feel myself resisting all this grown-up sh*t with every fibre of my being -- and I was the one who was freaking out that we didn't have any life insurance.  If Ez were late and I couldn't reach him on his cell I would start to think 'Oh my god, we have no insurance!  He's dead somewhere and I'm f*cked!!'  But facing the reality of all this real-world grown-up blather really has me in a lather.  I feel like I should just give it all up and start wearing polyester track suits and thick-soled white shoes and take up something safe and insurable like shuffleboard. 

I fully appreciate that with your later years you have much to lose, and therefore insurance makes sense.  But egads!  I figure we are spending somewhere around $6000 per year in insurance.  $6000!! See what I mean?  That's a diabolical industry!!  You pay and pay and then when you hurt your hand and are off work they turn you down on a technicality.  It's pretty hard to trust them when you know the track record - but here's the rub: you need the f*ckers.  You really, really do.

Well, at least I think you do.


So here's my dilemma - do I live my cool, rad life and say 'f*ck the system! fight the power!' or do I join the whistling masses and buy into the whole plan; life insurance, estate planning, RESPs, RRSPs, GICs, WTFs...??  How do you keep your *cool* when you can't go out because you spent your allowance on life insurance?  Ugh.  It is an utterly unpalatable dichotomy.  I guess it's just the bitter pill you swallow when you care more about your kids than about yourself.

I just don't want to lose myself in the process.  I only get one kick at the can -- I don't want it to only contain purified water that has been FDA approved and is calorie and additive free.

Jezeez.  I gotta live a little.

En Pointe

Nahanni sat in my lap in a dance studio filled with parents and their kids.  Her hair was braided along the front, swept to the back in a lovely bun bedecked with flowers and sparkly barrettes.  Her eyes grew wide when the girls started to dance -- and I began to cry.

Here I was in this dance studio, weeping as a lovely young ballerina in an impossible blue tutu flitted gracefully before us.  Nahanni was rapt, her eyes following this young girl's every step, every fluttering movement of her nimble arms. And all I could see was my daughter.  Nahanni seems born to dance - she seems to have simply awoken in this life as a ballerina, so I couldn't help but imagine her someday before us all, doing this dance she seems to so love.  This lovely girl, dark haired, brown-skinned seemed like she could be my daughter some day in the future, someday far removed from now when she will have half completed her inexorable unwinding from me.  It is a proud thing to watch these girls who have worked so hard, and also to imagine the work of their parents, who must also be credited for their success.  For even if they never dance professionally, any of them - there is a profound beauty to the dance that makes me happy every time I see it.  When the two raven-haired sisters finally danced I could hardly believe that someday I will have two like them.  What will they be?  What will they love?


For now I try to live in the moment with them both.  Nahanni had another sleepover last night so I soaked up the wonderful evening with just Zola, remembering how lovely it is to have uninterrupted time with just one child.  How much she deserves as much love and attention as Nahanni got.  Tonight I held and rocked her, her hair soft as silk against my cheek.  I breathed in the smell of her, kissed her pink pearl lips a hundred times, tasted her with all my senses and I sang her little song.  It is a gift from the gods to hold a small, beautiful child in my arms again and know that she is mine.  I am very grateful.

Life is Grand...Even When it's Snot.

I haven't somehow managed to write much yet about what a doll Zola is.  I was joking at a Christmas party the other night that for the second child all I've put on here is "See first baby".  And while it is easy to talk about the things that are hard, the truth is that everything that was lovely and stunning about my first baby is equally true, if not stronger with my second.  Zola is an absolute pet and I love her with all my heart as I did with Nahanni.  Her vanilla breath is as sweet - or perhaps sweeter for it is laden with the sad note that she is my last baby (I think...no, really, she is.  I think).  The worst thing is that there just isn't the time to dote and swoon that there was with Nahanni.  Or, I still dote and swoon, I just don't have time to write about it.  But I love having this baby every bit as much as I did the first time, and I am able to enjoy much of it more than I did as I am a) not half dead from blood loss and, b) much more chill than I was the first time.  I know eventually this child will eat french fries or potato chips so I don't get so worked up about the little things.

As for Nahanni, while it may seem that she and I are walking a rocky road, I recognize that in some ways I have done her, as well and her and me somewhat of a disservice when I speak here of the trials and tribulations of our recent times.  But I had a dream last night that illustrates the truth.  She and I were walking down the street and somehow she went from having her small hand in mine to being lost. I could hear her crying, that distinctive wail I have heard oh, so often lately - but because I knew she was lost and scared it was chilling.  She was yelling for me and I kept saying "Nahanni!  Keep crying so I can hear you! Louder!  Mommy's coming, I'll find you!" and like a horrible game of 'hotter/colder' I kept running towards her fading voice, panicked trying to find her.  Suddenly I found myself in a rural field, far from any homes and her cries had faded to a whisper on the wind.  I stood alone in this snow swept expanse while my daughter's cries faded away and I wept because I knew she was lost, utterly and completely.  I woke up in a dense sweat, my heart racing.  I crept to her room just to see her porcelain face, her lovely pink cheeks and ruby lips.  Her impossible lashes blinked slightly as she lay dreaming, completely safe and lost only to her dreams.  I knew then that even though we might be struggling lately, she will never be lost.  She is loved even at the worst of times and I would search to the ends of the earth to find her is she were missing for even a second - physically or metaphorically.

We'll be just fine.

Is it just me?

Ah, more of the same, I'm afraid.  The syrupy sweetness of 2007 has been replaced with the walking zombie of 2010.  I'm feeling utterly incapable of accomplishing major tasks.  I've joined a photography course online and am stuck (it seems permanently) on module one.  My hallway remains half painted.  My house, despite all my efforts to the contrary, looks like a bomb went off in it.  I am not sure what my path is anymore, other than mommy.  And mommy sure has its days...

Now that, I know is not just me.

I carry an awful guilt with me the days that Nahanni drives me nuts.  I look at her beautiful face, those big doe eyes and wonder how I can go from wanting to eat her up to wanting to lock her in a closet in a matter of minutes.  So far I'm enjoying Zola and her babyness but dreading the day when I have two kids driving me nuts and feel twice as bad of a mother.  This is challenging stuff.  Well, for most of us.  I was in a posh children's store yesterday and a young mother was there.  She pulled up in a huge Land Rover and nearly took my eye out with her giant diamond as she walked in the door.  She walked around with a doting salesperson (where was my sales suck-up?!?) and filled a satchel with an unimaginable amount of clothes for her 12-month old.  "We're going to Hawaii!" she exclaimed, between intermittent cell phone calls.  She never once looked at the price tag of the $50+ shirts she was chucking in - her only complaint was that they might shrink when her nanny washed them.  I heard her call the nanny once to tell her to steam some carrots for the boy, she'd be home in an hour or so.

I wonder if she ever feels like a bad mother.

Preschool has again come to the table and I have to make a decision fast.  Somehow preschool is looking vastly more doable than homeschooling, although I cannot seem to fathom all the responsibilities of  parent participation preschool.  What has happened to me?  What happened to the Wonder Woman I used to be?

Oh yeah, she hasn't slept through the night in a year and she's bloody tired.

And her costume's at the cleaners.

And doesn't fit.